Burning Man Simulation

To Art_Lives:

Whatever Burning Man has become in recent years, it did once stand for something. If you talk to Burners who were there in the 90s, there's very little sense of mainstream wash-out. Now, however, I have a whole bunch of Burner friends who are of the opinion that it's getting worse, year by year, as more and more people come just to party and observe, not engage and create.

However, your dismissal of so-called "perceived needs" ignores much of modern psychology. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a mainstay of clinical and therapeutic psych, stands in stark contrast to your words. There have been hundreds of documented studies or cases where individuals will forsake a lower need (like the shelter and food requirements you mention) in pursuit of a need higher up on the pyramid.

One could claim that shelter and food are "perceived" needs as well. Consider Siddhartha, who sat and lived unsheltered on a river bank eating a single grain of rice a day. To him, your apartment and 2000+ calories a day are as necessary as Burning Man.

And, by the way, from a variety of existential or phenomenological points of view, increasingly common in America's current culture of extreme overexposure and tunnel vision, that which is "perceived" is real, needs included.

As someone struggling with loneliness, isolation, alienation, and depression (I've been on paroxetine on and off for years, and depression runs strong on both sides of my family.), to claim that social needs aren't actual needs, or that they are merely constructs of our (post)modern corporate/capitalist system, is ignorant, hurtful, and offensive. (It's a good thing I made a decision a long time ago not to ever get offended. This response is more about keeping you honest than anything else.)

Your post strikes of knee-jerk liberal bullshit. Now I'm from Boston, live in NYC, and attended exceptionally liberal schools and colleges (Concord Academy and Wesleyan University, to wit); I'm about as liberal an American as you can find. However, I'm as pissed-off by people throwing around words like "martketing," "corporate," and "propagandist" as I am by neo-Con and Bush attitudes. The left is as full of shit as the right, and unless you reach a conclusion by, for, and of yourself, then you should keep it to yourself. Plenty of talking heads on both sides will say the rest for you. For someone wishing us all humility, try to doubt yourself and what you hear a little more.

I suggest you look into the history of Burning Man, and all subculture in general, before you make unsubstantiated claims like the one above. Do you see any difference between Burning Man and the grunge explosion of the early 90s? How about the ubiquity of hip-hop textures and production techniques in pop? Any subculture or aspect thereof which reaches critical mass will cross-over into the mainstream, creating an undercultural vacuum for new ideas to emerge. This is just how it goes; Kurt Cobain refused to accept this, and that is a significant part of why he blew his brains out.

Could things be better on Earth? Absolutely. Will they be? Probably not. But we'd be better off enjoying this ride than bitching at or about or fellow riders. (Although I am doing that a bit right now. Oh well, the whistle won't blow itself.) That is, if you don't like Burning Man, then don't go. It's not for everyone, just like the GOP, meat, SUVs, WalMart, and Clear Channel. But the damage done by those institutions is nothing compared to the damage done by banishing them. Monism in thought and action is the greatest threat to life, by extension, humanity, and by greater extension, current American culture.

As informed secular humanists, we ought to pay more attention to evolution. If there is a single driving ethic behind it, it's that of variation (and variation of variation of variation, ad infinitum) in all things. Encourage others to disagree with you; it's the most gracious and humble thing you can do.